Suhaib Webb – The History of the Mushaf (Part One)
![Suhaib Webb](https://artwork.muslimcentral.com/suhaib-webb-150x150.jpg)
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
To protect
all of us and to facilitate,
any of the challenges that we may be
facing.
And I wanna thank you for joining live,
Alhamdulillah, here at the ICNYU.
I really appreciate you taking the time,
to spend with us. It is certainly appreciated
tonight.
The topic I was asked to choose a
series of different topics instead of,
to continue the the normal classes that we
have. But then next week, from what I've
been told,
we will return to kind of our normal
schedule,
go back to
the book of Abu Hamad Al Ghazari, Rahim,
and then over time, I look forward to
finishing the other series that we sort of
started,
alhamdulillah.
We talked a few weeks ago about the
qira'at of Quran, the preservation of the Quran,
and I went through some of the different
examples of those qira'at and how
we know
with certainty that those qira'at
reached us through
channels that go back to the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam in the early generations and
we have another series of talks
or a part of this series ongoing through
those different asanid,
those different chains of narration
of the 10 major.
Tonight, this is the first part in a
series that's going to talk about the history
of the Mus'haf.
The history of the compilation of the Quran.
And tonight we will finish up until the
time of
Sayyidina Uthman ibn Affan
We,
from the Muslim historical perspective,
through the most authentic
historical perspective,
believe that there were 3 compilations of the
Quran.
The first was during the time of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, as we'll talk
about today.
The second was in the time of the
Khilafat
of Abi Bakr, Sadiaq radiAllahu anhu.
And then the third, as we know, was
in the time of Sayna Uthman ibn Affan.
Tonight InshaAllah we're going to talk about
Arabic writing and its history a little bit.
And then we're going to talk about the
development of that writing.
And then we're going to talk about
the compilation of the Quran
during the time of the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
And in the time of Abu Bakr, radiAllahu
anhu,
up until the time of Uthman. And then
we'll stop and then the next,
series will begin with the the the the
most have, sorry, after, excuse me,
the time of Uthman ibn Nathan radiAllahu anhu.
I'm I'm having to go from the dome.
So,
you know,
people often ask for references or notes,
and there's nothing wrong with that. My my
training though and how I was trained
was that
a book is like crutches.
And if you need a book,
then that means that there is some shortcoming
in what you know.
And that doesn't mean that people who need
that doesn't mean as a pejorative to attack
others, but just it's how I was trained.
So if you are used to having someone
provide you a text or notes or PowerPoint,
my apologies. That's that's not,
how I was trained.
Secondly, I think it's important to realize that
like me
or any other, person outside of maybe a
few, If you look at, like, how many,
say, followers we have
on social media, on on Facebook, almost a1000000.
On Instagram, a 120,000.
On Twitter, I don't know how many. I
I don't keep up. I have one person
that works with me.
If we compare that
to
Christian
teachers or Jewish teachers or even
even satanists.
They have people help them.
And what I wanna share with you is
that it is very hard to serve sometimes
the Muslim community
because
they want what they're not willing to help
get.
And so,
you know,
we all have lives. We all have responsibilities.
But it's very important to realize that we
have to begin in terms
like we have to help one another.
So imagine that much work,
full time job,
running a school with almost 2,000 students.
Of course, 1st and foremost is my wife
and my children.
And I have one person that helps me.
So I can't stress that when you feel
the urge to complain, which is fine,
maybe
volunteer first. And try to be someone who
helps imam Khaled, helps,
Sheikh Fayez, helps,
other teachers that you see, in the
community. And and understand that people work really,
really hard.
This kind of work
demands a level of focus and training and
review that is extremely taxing also on the
person.
So so forgive me for having to go
from the dome. But I think it's important
to understand
that if we compare
Muslim teachers
to other religions and other,
they have the patronies. They have the support,
and they have the volunteers
and the group of people around them
that allows them to scale.
So the Muslim community wants to scale,
especially we're talking in North America,
then there has to be this.
So we talk about the history of the
mus'ah, we have to begin
with the statement of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wasallam, which is an authentic statement, which is
misunderstood by some people now,
that the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam said, nahnu
umahaumiyah.
We are an illiterate community.
Another narration.
Right? We don't read and we don't write.
Some people
use this hadith to justify
illiteracy,
or
being ignorant of technology now. But we have
to understand that this hadith
is even though it comes in a general
way, we are a community.
He's specifically
talking about the people who lived around him.
Not not his ummah,
until the end of time, but at that
moment, the people around him. And this is
strengthened
by the verse in the Quran
where Allah
says
It is Allah who has dispatched the prophet
Muhammad to the illiterate ones.
So
illiteracy is not something that is commendable.
It's not something which is recommended, of course,
as we'll talk about later on. So no
one should take that narration that we are
an illiterate community and try to apply it
to Akcam now.
That will be incorrect.
So, therefore, we know that the majority of
the people around the prophet, salallahu alaihi wasallam,
they did not have the ability, they did
not have functional literacy,
including Sayyidina Nabi salallahu alaihi wasallahu
Abi Allah says the illiterate Prophet in Surat
Al A'raf.
So then that brings us to this question
of when did
Arabic writing
and reading enter into specifically
Mecca
and the Arabian
Peninsula, but specifically now the area of Hejaz.
We know,
based on our historical sources like Imam Adani,
Imam al Kalbi, and others, even Imam Ibn
Khaldun,
and other,
historians,
many,
that there were a few people in Mecca
during the time of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wasallam and slightly before his time
who could read and write.
I'll mention some of them as best as
I can remember.
The first was Abu Bakr Sadiq.
The second was Amr Nukhtab.
The third was, Ari ibn Abi Taarib.
The 4th was,
Uthman ibn Affan.
The 5th, the 6th, and the 7th were
from the same family. Harb
ibn Umayyah,
his son Abu Sufyan,
and his son
Muawiyah.
Also, Talha ibn Ubayt.
And finally, I think the 10th Aban ibn
Musa'l.
These people, they were known
to be people who could write and read.
The question,
the question that, and these weren't all sahaba.
The question that,
comes up is
where did it start?
Where did reading and writing start
in Mecca? This is very important in its
relationship to
the compilation and preservation of the Quran.
Muslim historians agree
on the Meccan
who introduced
reading and writing to Mecca. They
differ on who taught him.
So they differ on
the person from Mecca
who taught
reading and writing to people in Mecca, who
introduced it, if you will, but they differ
over who his teachers were.
And that person is harub
ibn Umayyah,
the father of Abu Sufyan, the grandfather of
Muawiyah.
Harb, ibn Umayyah
was a businessman,
and he would travel
to Iraq
regularly.
And
most Arab historians,
scholars of language like
ibn Qutayba,
who lived in the 3rd century,
and others, they agree
that the Arabic script initially came from Ambar.
And we know in the last 20 years,
the
the wars that were fought in Iraq and
the damage and destruction that happened there,
we know we all know the Anbar province.
Anbar is close to, like, the central area
of Iraq at that time.
What would later become Kufa and you need
to remember that that part of Anbar or
close to Ambar is going to become a
city called Kufa.
The city of Kufa, and you need to
remember this,
was established 17 years before the migration of
the prophet
But the point here is that in Ambar
with Hamzalal Ain,
the khat of Arabi
began.
There's a difference of opinion
on the people who undertook this important
exercise.
But Marwan ibn Murwa.
Murwa, excuse me, is known sort of as
the father of this.
Al Munzr ibnu, Judra
also is known in Islam ibnusidra.
I just remembered now the three names. Marwan
ibn Murrah like morrah, sour.
Aslam ibnu,
Sidra,
and,
Al Mundur ibnu Jodra. These three people.
And the the theory is that they took
the syyanic language, what they knew of the
syyanic language, and began to develop, like,
an alphabet
for the Arabic language.
And that's important because
historians note that,
Harb ibn
Umayyah,
according to 2 narrations,
he took this knowledge from either Abdullah ibn
Ujida'an
or Bishr
even Abdul Malik.
And let me correct myself.
No. No. So 2 people, and this is
the narration of Imam Adani
from
Zayd ibn An'am
that Zayd ibn An'am, he asked
Abdullah ibn Abbas radiaallahu anhu
about Arabic before the time of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam?
Like, what was it like? How did they
write it? What were the letters? Were there,
like,
you know, divisions between the the words?
And,
ibn Abbas, he said yes.
And then he asked him, and this is
related by Imam Adani in his book at
Taysir, I believe.
And, ibn Abbas radhiallahu anhu,
he he was then asked by,
ibn Anan where
did they learn it?
And he said from Harb
ibn Umayyah.
And then he asked him, where did Harb
learn it? And he said from Abdullah ibn
ibn Judahan. Abdullah ibn Judahan you all know
maybe is the person who the
happened in his house.
That the treaty that the prophet witnessed
as a young person
to protect the rights of people who came
into Mecca to do business, that was in
his home,
just to give you some historical context.
From that
that notion,
that that harp, he learned from Abdullah ibn
Judah'an, who learned
when he would go to Ambar,
back and forth.
And he would learn from the people there
because he spent so much time there and
he wanted to conduct business, so he learned
how to read and write. In fact, he
lived there, we can say. Right?
The other opinion is mentioned by Imam Al
Kalbi,
like Kalb, Imam Kalbi,
who mentions that
Harb
ibn Umayyah learned from Bishr ibn Abdul Marik.
And Bishr ibn Abdul Marik was from Ambar
Huah Embari Aslan.
And they spent a lot of time together.
So much time in fact that eventually Bishr
ibn Abdul Malik, he settled in Mecca, and
he married the sister of Harb.
And later on he moved to Ta'if.
And I don't wanna
give too much detail, but just to give
you an idea.
There is also a third opinion that he
learned from both of them, which is probable.
Yeah? He could have learned some from this
person and some from that person and a
little bit from this person and a little
bit from that person.
And that the presence of Bishr ibn Abdel
Maryk in Mecca,
as well as harub ibn
Umayyah, was a means for some people, as
we mentioned, I think, 10 people or more
to learn,
how to read and write. In Medina,
the people who were known to read and
write, of course, were a large number of
people from the Jewish community
who were teaching their children and wanted to
preserve,
their religious,
teachings. And then people like Zaidi
later on. And, of course, Ubay ibn Kab
and Humana, of course, both of them, Muhammadu,
eventually,
will be Muslim.
It continues this way, you know, reading as
an anomaly
in the Arabian Peninsula, and it's going to
stay that way for a long time, even
after the time of the 4 Khalifa. Like,
let's not let's not suddenly assume that everybody
began to read and write. This process takes
time
until the the battle of Badr.
And and here we see the the genius
of the prophet
in the Bayl al Badr who we know
that Allah gave
Walaqaad
Nasuraqumullah
Allah says that Allah has blessed you with
victory even though
you were weak.
That victory was a surprise victory.
And in the course of that victory,
they the Muslims were able to capture
a number of prisoners of war. And all
of us, we learned the story.
And the prophet salallahu alayhi wa'ala, around 70
people,
give or take. Right? 70 sometimes also is
used to show, like, its form of hyperbole,
like to show a lot of people were
captured.
And we know that some of them were
unable to pay for their,
freedom.
So the prophet
he said, those amongst you who can read
and write,
even a little,
should teach what they know to 10 children,
and this will be their freedom.
Alaihi Salatu Wasallam. This is actually a very
important moment
in the history of the Quran,
but especially the history of just
we learn something here. Now if we look
at many non profits
in the Muslim community in America,
is there a
sustainability
strategy of passing on leadership to young people?
Right? Learning how to step back
and make space and
also on young people to acquire the skills
needed to lead. There is a duality here.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is providing
them the skills
for something extremely important,
because you need to know this.
From the time of Badr,
up until the passing of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
by the time the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam
passed away, there were 40
scribes
just
for the prophet alaihi wasallahu alaihi wasallam.
Again, it goes back to what I talked
about earlier. Many of our teachers
and people who are volunteering and serving the
community,
they don't have a support apparatus. Even the
prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, he has 40 people. We're going to
mention some of them later just to write
the Quran.
And just to write what he says.
And what we know of some of those
writings is that they were written in this
the writing style that was learned from al
Ambar
that I talked about earlier.
Over time,
that style of writing became known as alhat,
khatl hijazi,
The writing of Hejaz.
But when it initially was introduced
into the Arabian Peninsula, specifically the Hejaz area,
It was known the writing the writing of
the Ambar writing
with Nun Ambar,
and then became over time known as
Hejaz, the writing of Hejaz.
So the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wa'arihi Wasallam
he understands how to scale, he understands
how there's going to be this need
for language
and perhaps the understanding of the Quran being
preserved.
So he makes a deal with these prisoners
of war
and a good number of them, Alhamdulillah,
taught 10 children
in Medina
how to read and write.
As we mentioned earlier, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wa'alehi Wa Salaam in his time the entire
Quran is compiled.
None of the Muslim historians
doubt this at all.
But during the time
of
the
prophet
it was not compiled into
a book, a mus'af.
We know from the narration and and and
Bukhari and others from Zayd ibn Thabit
that the prophet sallallahu has and other narrators,
that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
commanded people to write it on whatever they
were able to write on in those time,
like the skin of animals, the bones, and
even stones, even on
pieces
of
wood.
And we know from narrations, he would tell
them, put this Surah here and put this
Surah there and put this verse here and
put this verse there.
We also know that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam
taught the people the Quran. So for example,
the Hadith of Istikhara from Abdullah ibn Masood
and others
that say that the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wa'arihi
Wa Sallam
used to teach us this tikhara
like he taught us the Quran.
This hadith is in Bukhari.
So the way we were taught Listikharah,
to memorize it and to utilize it and
to act on it,
We were taught the Quran. That's one evidence.
Also, you have the narration of which
is an authentic hadith
who describes how the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, he would read the Quran, and she
noted that he would take
a a short stop between each verse. And
specifically she's referring
to Surat al Fatiha.
Also the narration of Imam al Tirmidi, which
is Hassan,
from Abdullah Iba Mas'ud who is sitting with
somebody who is reading short of Tawba.
And that person said
he said
Of course those of you who know Tajweed
this is
It's a connected
You cannot read it with less than than
2 long seconds.
So Abdullah ibn Masudur radiAllahu anhu, he said
to him, don't read like that.
Don't read like that.
He said, what do you mean? He said,
that's not the way that the prophet taught
us how to read.
I believe the narration says that he would
extend words like
That's why Imam Ibn Jazari who comes centuries
later
and collects all of these different asanid of
the qira'at,
he said it is not allowed. No
imam of the Quran narrated
with less than 4 haraka, 2 long seconds.
Also the narration that we mentioned,
a few weeks ago
between
Sayidina Umar and Hakim.
When when the when Umar asked him, man
who
who
taught you to recite like this?
He said,
The prophet taught me to recite
like this. And, he said, but he didn't
teach me to recite like that. So what
we understand here
is that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
taught the companions
how to read
and recite the Quran. So not only making
sure it was written, not only making sure
it was organized as he was taught by
Sydney Jibril alayhi salatu salam,
but also the
and we talked about this before, the the
proper way of reciting the Quran,
he taught
them.
And
there are numerous ahadith
from men and women that talk about, we
heard the prophet read.
We heard the prophet read. We heard
the prophet read this chapter, this chapter,
up
to
Sayna Muhammad
Also the authentic hadith of the prophet
who
from Sayyidina Ali, I believe and others.
Let's say when revelation would descend upon the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
we would see that he was very tired,
it was hard on him.
While the narration says that prophet salallahu alaihi
wasalam, he would sweat
on extremely cold days, his forehead would sweat,
And the prophet
after this he would say come and take
from me, and he would recite
those verses to those people around him and
teach them.
And I I need you to remember this.
This was the most important medium of the
preservation and teaching of the Quran.
Is the prophet teaching them, alayhi salatu salam,
and then
appointing some of them to be Imams like,
Muad ibn Jabal radiAllahu anhu and others who
would recite the Quran
in front of others, and this is how
you created a Quranic community.
Peer review.
Amongst the companions of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam who memorized the Quran, Sayda Aisha,
Sayida Hafsa,
Sayida Fatima,
Sayida Salima, the women closest to the Prophet
of course, they're going to be those who
can benefit the most
from His teaching, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
From amongst,
the men, the 4 khulafa.
Also, Mu'awiyah,
Aban ibn Saad,
From the people and more, from the people
of Medina,
Zayd al Mustavit,
Abu Huraira,
Amruh ibn Musaad and Munruh ibn Masad Afan.
And others.
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud from Mecca.
These people had memorized the Quran in the
lifetime of the prophet
So we see that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam's preservation of the Quran
means the following.
For us now,
in an age of literacy,
that it was written down completely.
Number 2,
that it was memorized.
Just because those people I mentioned memorized the
Quran doesn't mean other people didn't memorize a
lot of Quran
or a good portion of the Quran.
And I mentioned some of those people who
I believe were the writers of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, maybe I forgot.
The 4 Khalifa,
and his his
his,
son,
Abdullah ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Amar,
and
others.
Then the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
he passes.
And then comes the time of Sayna Amr,
Abu Bakr Siddiq radiAllahu anhu.
And it's very important to understand something that
in the time of Abbeccar,
around 80 to 85 percent of the Arabian
Peninsula
apostates.
Like, it's not a simple e issue.
The the sedition that was happening in the
2 years of the leadership of Abu Bakr
was very difficult.
Around 80 to 85 percent
of the people
apostated the tribes.
Especially from the area of Yamama
and Musaylama
al Kedab,
Musaydama the liar.
In those battles,
the long narration in Bukhari and others
from Zayd ibn Thabit,
a considerable
number of
people who were excellent in reciting the Quran
and people who had memorized the Quran. People
began to continue memorizing and the numbers of
people who were
excellent in reciting the Quran had grown,
But a considerable number of them had died.
And we know that
he came to Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu
and he encouraged him
to what's called Jama with a'in, Jannah al
Quran,
to collect the Quran.
And many of us know the answer of
Abu Bakr radiAllahu Anhu,
We said, kifa anafaru
ma lamya faru,
Rasulullah he salallahu alaihi wasallam. How can we
do something that the prophet didn't do it?
And we know that Ammar
continued to
encourage him
until he finally, he's like,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala opened up my heart
to this idea and I embraced this idea.
And here we found find the foundations
of the majority of Sunnis who divide Bida
into hasanah and mad mumma.
Because here Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu is acting
on the general evidences of the Sharia,
not any specific evidences of Sharia.
That's the majority of Sunnis.
Some ulama they actually you know they say
like there are verses in the Quran that
sort of encourage us to preserve the Quran
like Allah
Subhanahu
wa
Ta'ala
says He doesn't say
So some of them they say that the
word kitab is mentioned like kitabah
because it means to write. So what's inferred
is that the book has to be written.
And then they also say the same thing,
well,
you know,
That the Quran is called Quran
because
the Quran as a word comes from two
meanings.
The majority of scholars of language say that
it comes from a word which means aljama,
to join together.
Because when we recite, we join together letters
and words.
That's why in Surat Al Baqarah,
the menstrual cycle is called
3 because
they theorize that the embryo
or the blood was trying to cling, excuse
me, to the uterus.
That's why subhanAllah,
the word qariyah,
a village, because that's where people come together,
it's from the same root.
Others of course they said, nah Quran is
from Qira'ah
to recite,
but either way we find that there is
an idea
to
bring the Quran together from these words.
It's called Dalera tul Ima.
That's not our discussion, but just, you have
an idea that there's some ulama contemporary scholars,
who like said, well, these verses also kind
of elude to this process.
Jama' Al Quran, it's called Quran
and Kitabatul
Quran because it's Dariqul
Kitab, the book to be written, a book
has to be Maqtub,
it has to be written.
So Sayna
Abu Bakr radiAllahu Anhu
initially was worried
and then Masha'Allah he agreed and he appointed
Zayd ibn Thabit.
Zayd ibn Thabit, we talked about him earlier,
was one of the people who memorized the
Quran
But amongst the Sahaba, maybe somebody will ask,
why did Abu Bakr choose someone younger than
others?
Because he was more accomplished
in Quran.
And that's a lesson again for our non
prophets,
and for the work that we're doing in
this community,
that we have to make sure that all
people
are are able to participate regardless of age
or gender or ethnicity
or language
or social economic status,
and it's in it's in it's it's concerning
that the majority of the boards of our
nonprofits
are simply led by the rich.
This is a criticism that can be made
that we should think about introspectively
as a community
because people want their donations. But do you
want the donations of someone the only reason
they'll donate
to you is if they're a leader? Maybe
that's not the best person. And maybe that
describes why there's sometimes
political problems in Masajid.
Whereas what we should look for are the
people who are most qualified,
and we should be deliberate
in our strategy to make sure that it's
as many people as possible from as many
different Alhamdulillah
backgrounds as possible because that's who our community
is.
So so Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'alaan who he
does what the prophet did.
In the authentic narration, that young man comes
to the prophet
with his group and the prophet wants to
choose a leader, and he asked each one
of them, what have you memorized from the
Quran?
And that young man said, I memorized Baqarah.
And in Baqarah, there's a lot of lessons
about organizing and working and leadership.
So the prophet
said, you memorized Baqarah? He said, yes. The
prophet
said, you're the Amir.
When Amar al Khattab saw the Adhan in
his dream,
Did the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam appoint her
Omar to be the Mu'avin?
No. Bilal and Abdullah ibn Maktoum Radiallahu Anhum.
Why?
Because
they have the best voice.
So the Prophet
chooses
who's best for the job and this is
what Abu Bakr does
when he wants to choose someone who can
be in charge of this process
Of Jannah Al Quran,
he chose Zayd ibn Thabit for the following
reasons.
Number 1, he memorized the Quran. Number 2,
he was a writer of the Quran.
Number 3, he was known amongst the Sahaba
as the most
precise
in the aharuf of the Quran,
the letters and readings of the Quran,
and he attended
the last year of the prophet's life,
peace be upon him, when the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam read to Jibreel
the Quran
twice, Zayd ibn Thabit was there.
And that is very important because that last
reading
is going to,
if you will, be what the Quran is
now.
Before
we talk about Zaid's work,
because there are a few narrations
that some of the
people who want to engage
polemically
Islam, which is fine,
but sometimes the way they engage it,
it is showing that they're lacking certain understandings.
When we use the word Jema,
Al Quran,
compilation of Quran,
what does that mean?
If you think about everything I said previously,
it's in that word.
The first
is Tadwino Quran,
Kitabatul Quran, that the Quran is written.
This happened in the time of the prophet
although not in one text.
Number 2,
the preservation
of how to recite
the Quran.
How to recite it correctly.
Number 3,
the memorization of the Quran.
Hith
Al Quran.
And number 4, and this is a different
topic,
is how to act on the Quran.
And how to act on the Quran
means 3 things.
Number 1, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's
actions.
Number 2,
the actions of the early Muslims
when they agreed
on the meanings of the Quran
and number 3,
how the early Muslims
taught us to differ
over meanings of the Quran. That's very
important SubhanAllah,
so when we say Jema Al Quran
number 1 we mean Kitabat Al Quran
The prophet
as we mentioned,
he commanded people to write the Quran
and even where to place
chapters and verses.
Number 2, the proper tilawa of Quran.
We find the Sahaba Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
mentions them in Surat Al Baqarah
They recite
it correctly.
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And also for example the prophet SAWHSAWALLAM encouraging
people to take the tilawah from Abdullah ibn
Mas'ud, from Ubay ibn Bukab, from Zayd ibn
Thabit and others
as a preservation of the tilawah.
So kitaba,
tilawah, writing, recitation.
The 3rd
is
through the memorization of the Quran.
We mentioned those companions that had memorized the
Quran from the time of the prophet salallahu
alayhi
wasalam
at.
And that the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam in
the Quran, Allah says,
In the chest
of people.
And then 4th, Al Amal.
How to act on the Quran, and that's
a different
discussion.
So when we say Jam Al Quran,
it means those things.
Kitaba
tilawahithalamal.
So when Zayd ibn Thabit
begins this process,
he says something remarkable.
Initially, he doesn't like the idea. He says
this is not something that the prophet did,
but then also he says, Abbeccar
finally,
was able to show me that this was
the correct thing to be done, and he
agreed. And here we see the maturity of
the Sahaba,
how they could differ
and change their opinions and grow and adapt
and listen and engage.
He says, wallahi, if somebody asked me to
carry a mountain,
it would be easier
than that responsibility
that Abu Bakr gave to that young person.
Allahu Akbar
Zayd ibn Thabit.
Zayd ibn Thabit,
in an authentic narration from Imam Abu Dawood,
from Yahya
ibn Abdurrahman
ibn Haltib,
this narration.
From Yahya
ibn Abdurrahman
ibn Khatib.
Said that Sayyidina Amr ibn Khattab radiAllahu anhu
he would come
to the city of Medina,
and he would say, any of you who
have something written of the Quran
in front of the prophet
bring
it.
We learn also from this narration
that Zayd ibn Thabit, he didn't act on
his
own. He was just like the supervisor.
But there were other people involved.
Zaydna Uthman ibn Affan,
Ubayi al Muqab,
and others, Sayidah Hafsa, Sayidah Aisha, others.
And Zaidi Muftabat, we understand
from this narration
in Abu Dawood, as well as, I believe,
in Bukhari,
that he had a number of conditions.
The first condition
is that it was memorized. Like people who
memorized the Quran are the ones that are
involved.
Number 2, that if it was written,
it had to be witnessed
by people that it was written in front
of the Messenger of Allah.
At a minimum, 2 people
had to witness that that individual
had written that
part of the Quran
in front of Sayedal Ekwan
sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
So memorized
and written, but not written alone,
written in front of others.
And that's where people get confused
about the narration in Bukhari of Abi
Hoseymah.
Wednesday, the Imuthabit,
in talking about this process of compiling the
Quran,
he
he says that I I found everything
except the last verse of Shotoba.
I found that with Abi huzayma.
Some people, because of insecurities
or fear
or being,
you know, perhaps impacted by an, you know,
to love Muslims and love Islam and love
our scholarly tradition
is an act of revolt, an act of
divine revolt
in front of the tidal wave of the
Eurocentrism
that we see in the academy,
as well as permeating
the world around us.
As Sahawi and others mentioned,
that one of the conditions of Zayd
was that it had to be what he
had memorized,
but
look
at the dikah,
the precision of Zayd ibn Thabit, who says,
I'm not just gonna rely on what I
memorized from the prophet.
I've gotta find it memorized by others,
and then it has to be written, and
that what was written has to be witnessed
by more than 2 people.
So when he goes to Abi Khozema,
it's not because Zayd doesn't know the verse.
That's not that's not what he means. That's
not what the narration means. The narration doesn't
mean he didn't know the verse and no
one else knew the verse except Abi Hoseymah.
No. It was memorized.
The people who had memorized the Quran knew
it, but Abi Khozema was the one who
wrote it.
He had it written down.
And you'll remember we said 2 conditions,
memorized,
written.
So we hear actually the opposite we understand
from this narration.
The the precision of Zayd ibn Thabit and
others like Sayidna Amrul Khattab radiAllahu anhu,
and then the fact that other people knew
Abi Khozema had written it,
it wasn't a big secret,
and informed
Zaid ibn Thabit
and Omarah and others that this is the
person who wrote this, this is a person
who has it written down, meaning it wasn't
a big secret, it was known. But that
hadith, even sometimes Muslims are asking me questions
about it, which I understand, it gets lost
in translation and people want to strengthen their
Iman and know how to defend the Quran,
may Allah bless them. But the narration of
Abi Khuzayma
by no means implies
that he had a portion of Quran that
no one else had.
No, he had written down what no one
else had written down because as we said
earlier,
you know, writing wasn't the main means of
preserving the Quran,
it was hith.
So I hope that clarifies that narration.
So, Sayyidun Azaydun Luthabbih radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, he
compiles the Quran,
in coordination with people like Uthman ibn Affan,
Sayyid Amar, Sayyid Hafsa, Sayyid Aisha, Sayyid Fatima,
sayidah Muawiya
radhiallahu anhu,
and the mushaf is compiled.
Jama al mushaf,
meaning written,
read,
memorized,
acted on.
Then, of course, you know,
it stays with Sayna Abu Bakr, then it
goes to Sayna Amrul Khattab
and then comes the reign of Sayna Uthman
ibn Affan,
and next time we'll pick up there
and talk about
the development of the Arabic script because there
are some people out there
who, you know, perhaps, for whatever reason,
say some things about the Kufic script in
particular
and the role,
people like Khotib, Ibnu al Muharara,
and others in developing the Kufic script and
its relationship to the Hejazi script, and then
what happens in the Abbasi time with Mohammed
ibn Mokleh and others who were responsible for
the Arabic script that we have in front
of us today. We'll talk about that next
time. But what do we talk about today?
We talked about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam
talking about that his community, the people around
him were illiterate. We talked about the people
around the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
who had literacy. We talked about the cause
or the people, the main players, not the
only, but these are the main players who
contributed to the literacy of people in the
Hejaz. We mentioned Harib ibn, Umayyah, and this
difference about who taught him, or perhaps both
of them, which seems quite plausible,
taught him.
And we talked about the battle of Badr
and how this has this really incredible impact.
And then we talked about the the way
of preservation of the Quran in the time
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and then
we talked about the time of Abu Bakr
radiAllahu anhu,
what happens
and how the employees say it and
why, and then we talked briefly.
Again, what I'm telling you now could be
taught, like, probably in a semester course. So
I'm just kinda giving you the the surface
of all of this, and I hope encourage
you to do your own constructive research. Zayd
ibn Muftab, of course, follows this really, really
kind of
precise way with the help of others. We
mentioned the narration of, Imam Abu Dawood of
Sayidina Amar ibn Khattab
with the narration of Abdulham Yahib al Abdulhaman
ibn Hautib
with bat from imam Abu Dawood,
and then then this process of zayd. And
then we mentioned one example. There are numerous
examples that we can go through in the
future of a narration found in Bukhari
that people, if they don't understand what jamquran
means,
and if they don't know the process that
Zayd employed, and they read that, especially with
the English translation, they're gonna get confused.
Abi Khozema, he had his own version of
the Quran. What?
But we said what it meant was he
was the one who had Laqajaq Rasulunimin fusikum
Azizalim,
he had it written down.
But the others had it memorized. And that's
why Imam al Sahawi,
he says, what that means is that he
was the one who had it written down
and more than 2 people witnessed it being
written
in front of the prophet
while the others had it
memorized.
May
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala increase you in khair.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make,
our efforts inshallah for his sake. We ask
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
If there are any questions or comments, we're
happy to take them now.